Pick your Poison
by unwritten4u
Summary: How did Tenten get herself into this situation? Wiping the blood from her rusty blade, pulling up her black hood, she sighed. Being the Grim Reaper wasn't as fun as she thought it would be.
1. Mistakes

How did Tenten get herself into this situation? Wiping the blood from her rusty blade, pulling up her black hood, she sighed. Being the Grim Reaper wasn't as fun as she thought it would be. Pulling out her faded and torn list, she read the name of her next victim. Tenten held the scythe to the young girls' neck, her face showing complete and utter terror. The young girls victim glanced up with tear filled eyes, pleading her not to take her. Tenten was struck in the most important place, her heart. Being a ninja, she was trained to kill, take another soul without emotion. She was never good at it. There would always be a pang of despair at the back of her sewn heart. Tenten's lip trembled as her chocolate brown eyes filled with tears of pity, tears of remembrance.

_**"Please! I'll do anything!" Tenten pleaded, "Just please! I don't want it to end this way!"**_

**_Silence erupted from the cloaked man as he lowered his scythe down to his side._**

_**"Tenten,"**_

_**The sound of his voice made Tenten want to shriek. It was stagnant and as dismal as his appearance.**_

_**"To live, you must leave this world, and become, Death." Before Tenten could speak, the cloaked figure swept his blade across her folded arms, her blood spilling around her, cascading her petite figure. She re-opened her once closed eyes. She didn't feel anything.**_

**_"What are you talking about!" She yelled into the darkness. But it was to late, he was gone._**

Tenten shut her eyes driving the blade into the girls chest. A young girl, as young and maybe younger, was just taken into the realm of the dead, and it was all her fault. She had never felt so low in her life. How many souls had she taken? Who was next? Why did this happen to her. All these questions rang through Tenten's jumbled mind. Pulling up the list, she read the next name, her face one of pure terror. There on the list, the name read clearly;

Neji Hyuuga


	2. How it Came to be

"This has to be a mistake!" Tenten reasoned "Neji is a perfectly healthy young man! I…" Tenten's uncertain eyes landed on the mangled and torn parchment. There it was, staring at her, taunting her. The name she had grown so used to would be erased forever.

"There is no way!" She yelled "I am not committing such a wrong and mistaken crime!"

The room around her grew darker with every passing second, but she didn't care. Her strength diminished slowly, but she didn't care. Her eyes grew lifeless and dull, but she didn't care. The only thing she cared about was;

"Neji…I…won't let him take you…"

A cloaked figure appeared in front of the burnet speaking slowly as not to be misunderstood.

"Are you not willing, to take his life?" He spoke, inching toward her. "Are you willing to die? For this…boy? Willing to leave behind, everything, so you can have nothing? …Are you willing?"

Tenten griped the ground with torn and battered fingers. Tears leaking down her face.

…**.No…**

"Why?" She spoke, her voice the softest it has ever been. "Why…"

…**This can't be happening…**

"Without me, you are nothing." He hissed. "You cannot go on living without this mere boy, but you cannot continue, if you are not with him?" He questioned.

…**I cared for him…**

"…Do you belive in love?" Asked Tenten. "That there is someone out there, for anyone person?"

…**I loved him…**

"He will be dead."

…**You're lying…**

"He will stay alive!"

…**I will fight…**

"His life will be torn from the both of you."

…**But feelings will remain…**

"He will remain in my heart!" She yelled, sobbing uncontrollably. "He will remain in my heart…"

…**I will fight…**


	3. Ideas

"_Please!" Tenten begged on her knees, tears burning hot on her cold face. "Please! Let me see him!" She sobbed bitterly._

_The cloaked figure walked over to Tenten kneeling beside her. She stared up through blurred eyes as the figure took off his garments reveling to her cold lavender eyes. Tenten gasped in fear as she spoke the first word that came to her lips;_

"_Neji."_

_She clamped both hands over her mouth, the tears overflowing her eyes and plopping on the ground as she examined the cold and distant eyes. She found comfort knowing that these milky lavender eyes were not the gentle and caring eyes of Neji._

"_Is this what you want?" Yelled the man. "Is this what you want to see!? Take a good look at reality; you've been hiding from it your whole life."_

_Tenten couldn't bear look at the man, she turned away and felt sick in the stomach. She clutched her stomach and let pour the vomit from her mouth as the tears mixed with the brown liquid coating her in the horrendous smelling substance._

"_Who are you?" Tenten gasped through the sobs and tears._

_The man re-cloaked himself and spoke in harsh voice._

"_Sometimes, we are so blind to the world. The hate and sadness that linger in it, but happiness derives from sorrow and abhor. Sometimes our eyes cannot see clearly without being washed with tears first."_

"_What does that mean?" Tenten snarled, wiping the tears from her swollen eyes. "I don't know who you are or why you spared me," Tenten began to embrace the flow of tears that were falling down her cheeks. "But if I have to go through all of this, then I want to die now."_

"_But my little pretty," Laughed the reaper, "The fun has just begun."_

_Tenten shut her eyes and hoped that when she opened them that this sick nightmare would disappear. But to her dismay the cruelness intensified. She soon found herself unfeeling toward the victims that she had slain, and unable to express the hatred in her heart, the sorrow in her eyes, and the emptiness in her soul, she began contemplating suicide. She wondered if she died would she stay in the realm of the dead, or fade away like a wilting rose._

_She found out that the underworld was much like the living world, filled with people that had passed, waiting for family of friends to join them. She sat alone the big black field of the damned and closed her eyes recalling her life before. With her eyes still closed she plucked a dark red rose and held it in her hands. She squeezed it and ran it across her arms until the skin peeled off. The sensation of pain was wonderful. She opened her eyes to see that her arms were not bleeding._

"_Of course," Tenten said sadly "In the realm of the dead, you are nothing but soul. No blood to bleed or flesh to tear. No cuts to bandage or burns to cool."_

_She wrapped her arms around her legs and began to cry. She wept tears of love; they started out blood, running down her face until they dropped from her chin swifting down to the ground as sakura blossoms. She wept there for three days and three nights, and in those three days no one had died. _

_On the fourth day she realized that the life of Neji had not yet been taken by her hand. She stifled her crying promising to herself that she would put off his death as long as she could. Just because she was suffering in the land of the dead, didn't mean Neji had to also._

_Looking at the field she lay in she noticed that it was no longer dark and eerie, but warm and inviting. The tears she had cried watered the realm of the dead and came sprouting Sakura trees. Her eyes grew wide as she realized and understood what the reaper had told her so very long ago._

"'_Happiness derives from sorrow and abhor'" A smirk appeared on Tenten's face. "To get to the rainbow we need to wait through the rain. In this situation, the only way to get to the rainbow is to cheat death."_


End file.
